She hurled herself over, vomiting violently.
“It’s okay, you’re okay.” Samson rubbed her back, his voice gentle, soothing. “You’re okay.”
Elena wiped her lips with trembling fingers. Distantly, she could hear shouts. She tried to rise but her knees wobbled, and she crashed back down, hissing in pain.
“Easy, easy,” Samson said. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his body warm and comforting, his voice a low pull. “I got you.”
Blearily, Elena looked up at him. His wet hair stuck to his face and his lips were thin and pale, but his eyes were vivid and bright, his voice strong as he held her, and for a moment, Elena forgot her pain, her fear, clutching him as he whispered in her ear and rubbed her back until the shuddering passed and she felt like she could rise again.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded, and Samson helped her up. Wind whipped their faces as the storm grew in its rage. Elena could barely see the bow up ahead.
“We need to get up there and summon our Agni,” he said.
The ship tilted, and they instinctively grabbed the railing. Samson locked his arm over hers, and they held on for dear life as the waves tossed them as if they were a toy in the hands of a child.
“We can’t make it!” she shouted.
“We can! Just hold on to me!” He wrapped himself around so that her back pressed into his torso, his hands braced on both sides of her body, shielding her. His warm breath tickled her ear. “Move with me, rani.”
Despite herself, Elena fought back another kind of shudder. Together, they followed the railing until they made it to the bow of the ship.
Sea-foam sprayed onto her face, stinging her cheeks. Below, she could see the sea chomping at the hull of the ship, trying to break it in two. Fear seized her. She imagined the ship snapping, saw herself plunging into the dark depths, water crushing her lungs, beating out her breath—
“Focus!” Samson shook her shoulder. “Focus on your Agni!”
She felt for her fire, envisioned heat lighting up her veins, her skin, until a flame flared to life around her wrist. Its sudden brightness beat back the dark. Like a beacon, it burned the night with a vicious defiance. But rain slithered down her neck. The waves shot up, brushing the back of her hands, and she hissed at its cold bite.
“Focus!”
“I—I can’t!” she cried. She tried to splay her trembling fingers into the form of the Lotus, but she could not hold it. Her flame gasped, dissipatinginto steam. “The dance, I—I need space. I—” The ship heaved, and Elena clung to the railing, barely keeping her balance. She could not dance on such a raging sea.
“We’ll hit a break soon!”
Samson stepped back and unspooled his urumi. Blue flames ripped down the blades as he whipped it into an arc, moving faster and faster—and then he staggered in pain. He was too weak. His flames too small, too dull. His fire juddered against the cold, stinging rain.
The ship began to nose-dive.
“Elena,” he cried, his voice a plea, “now!”
She pushed herself back from the railing, sliding, fighting for purchase, before she finally slammed her weight into her heels and brought up her arms and shoved her fist forward, her Agni ripping up her stomach to her chest and down her arm, roaring to life with red, vicious tongues.
Their flames hissed in unison.
Samson spun around, and they stood back-to-back, braced, when the ship careened down, and the sea surged up.
Water flooded the deck. But Samson whipped his flames forward, and she followed in step, and their inferno ballooned into a ball that burned back the sea. Inch by inch, the waves receded. For a wild, breathless beat, Elena thought they had done it. But then an eerie sound called through the pit, building in volume, until it seemed like the very night reverberated with its mournful cry. It came from the depths of the sea, in the darkness that had no name. And as Elena stared past the protective glow of their flames, she saw a shape expanding in the distance, beyond their reach.
She froze as Samson let out a curse. She could smell his fear, the sudden staleness of it. The way his Agni quivered like a bow strung by an invisible hand.
“Wh-what is that?” she asked.
He did not respond. The shape grew taller, larger. Her heart seized as it filled the horizon, growing impossibly vast, bleeding into the edges of the darkness she could not see through.
“Sam!”
His voice was quiet. “Do you trust me?”
